Somewhere Between the Ocean and Sky
by blak-cat23
Summary: Kataang Week 2014 entries. Day 4: Storm
1. Secrets

They were in the Fire Nation when she found out, and in hindsight Katara thanked every and all spirits that she had been. She wasn't sure why'd she been scared at first, she and Aang were married, quite a few months married already. And they were adults, no longer nervous teenagers giggling in corners or trembling to speak up in diplomatic meetings.

"My lady remember what I said," the physician said as Katara redressed herself, "No alcohol, no fish, keep sugars low—"

"Yes, thank you," Katara said, refusing to admit her tone was snappy. It was the pregnancy, no, was she really using that excuse already?

It was all very real and all very scary, even with her marriage official and her well within her rights to bear children, they had not been trying, they had simply been careless. Not, of course, that she didn't want children, of course she did. And she needed them, needed an Airbender.

But there was a difference between wishing for something and having it thrust upon you. And Aang was going to panic. He was a man child in most aspects of his life and now he was, forever and officially, a father.

"Lots of rest, as often as you can," the physician continued, "Keep bending to a minimum. Lots of parents think they can influence their child's bending potential by bending while pregnant but trust me, it doesn't work that way…"

The man was rambling but Katara didn't hear him. She needed to find somewhere to think and someone to confide who wasn't a stuffy Fire Nation doctor. She wondered, briefly, if she had to pay to keep the man quiet. But Katara was fairly certain the man wasn't paying attention enough to even know who the father of her child was, or perhaps he simply gave off an air of not bothering to care.

She mumbled a goodbye and was out of the room and moving down the halls of the Fire Nation palace. Zuko had afforded them permanent rooms in the residence wing. The first year of Zuko's reign was spent here by Aang. Katara and Sokka came intermediately, but Aang lived a full year in the capital.

Katara had always felt Aang's time during that year was his easiest and safest for both their lives. But the world caught up with them and by the time they were both of age there were far too many things keeping them apart at that moment. Aang had finally proposed at nineteen after six months away. They waited three years to get married as Aang and Zuko finally broke ground on Republic City. And now less than half a year into her marriage, she was pregnant.

Her first thought was speaking to Suki who had already had a child with her brother. Sokka had been unhinged the day he learned his wife was pregnant, she could pick Suki's brain for the secret to keeping the father calm. But Suki would tell her brother, she was no secret keeper when it came to him.

Toph was her next thought but she'd yet to have a child and she was another one who would quickly blow Katara's cover. Ty Lee…well Katara didn't know her well enough to confide in her that she was carrying the Avatar's child.

"The Fire Lady requested a change on the menu," groaned a servant, "Change the meat stew to a vegetarian option. We don't have time to cook up an entire new meal…"

Of course! Mai! She'd already had two children with Zuko and was usually too disinterested in most things to even bother telling anyone else.

"If only that damn Airbender wasn't so—"

"Excuse," Katara interjected and all the servants turned bright red.

"My lady, we were just—"

"Yes, do you know where I might find the Fire Lady? I have an urgent matter to discuss with her," Katara said.

They looked ready to faint with fear that Katara was telling on them. After they'd told her where to find Mai she considered telling them the discussion was not about them, but she'd let them fear for their jobs for a while after the near comment about Aang.

Katara found the Fire Nation queen out at the turtle-duck pond just like the servants said. She sat there with her daughter, the eldest, tossing bread crumbs to the small creatures. The few things Mai smiled for, Zuko and her children, were always a beautiful sight. She'd occasionally smiled for Katara and her friends, once confiding that they and Ty Lee were the only people she ever truly considered friends, but the brightest of all her smiles went to her husband and children.

"Your Majesty," said the nearest guard to Mai, "You have a visitor."

Mai looked up to Katara and nodded, beckoning with a hand for Katara to join her at the pond. Katara sat down nervously and pulled her knees to her chest.

"If you're coming to me with this, I imagine it's something you don't want your husband to know," Mai said, breaking off a piece of bread and handing to Katara. Mai's daughter smiled brightly calling out "Auntie Katra!" in the best way her four-year-old tongue could manage the words.

Mai whispered into her daughter's ear and the girl took off running to go play with some toys in the grass. She looked ridiculously like Zuko, which is to say, she looked quite a bit like what Azula must have looked like young. Though now that some of the pudge around her face had thinned out, it was clear she'd inherited Mai's slender face and jaw. She'd grow up to be a very pretty girl.

"I hate keeping secrets from him, we've never done that," Katara explained throwing a bread piece, "And this is the last thing I should be keeping from him."

"Your secret will be safe with me."

"I'm pregnant."

Mai's look of surprise was not the kind that came from learning the unexpected, but rather from something else.

"That's what you're keeping from him?" Mai asked.

"I know, I'm awful," Katara dropped her head into her knees.

"It's not that, it's just—why?" Mai said. "I mean we all always joke about how you two, more than any of us, kind of had to 'get down to business' as it were."

"We just, we weren't trying and at any minute Aang could be called away somewhere and then he'd have this on his consciousness and he wouldn't leave and he'd probably get into an argument with me if I tried to go with him," Katara said.

"You're not the first woman to bear the Avatar's child," Mai said, "History proves it can be done. Even the female Avatars had children without a problem."

"But this is different. This is post-war, a hundred year long war, and Aang's expected to be at every border dispute, every trade disagreement, every hint of military aggression. We were going to wait until things are more stable and—"

"Katara, the world is never going to be stable enough to feel like you can safely and comfortably bring a child into the world, Avatar or not," Mai said, "There will always be something going on, that's the gamble with children. You introduce to them to the world and hope they can be the ones to make it better."

It was surprisingly deep coming from Mai of all people, but then again, the woman was just quiet, not unintelligent. And Katara did feel slightly embarrassed watching Mai's daughter play around. Mai, like Katara, had been expected to produce offspring and her own children were in worse danger than anyone's. Katara knew about the threats, even if Mai and Zuko tried to hide them.

"I guess…I'm not the only person in the world with these problems and I should stop acting like I am," Katara mumbled out as gracefully as she could and Mai actually smiled.

"I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to," she said, "But it's okay to be scared. I won't lie, your life is about to change but not in a bad way, so stop assuming it is."

Katara nodded and smiled back to Mai. Without warning, she hugged the woman who went stiff before conceding to giving her a hug back. Their husbands were best friends, that had to make them some kind of honorary sisters-in-law right?

"One more thing," Katara said, "How should I tell him?"

Mai actually laughed.

"That one is all you."

* * *

Katara had chosen to tell Aang after dinner. Only Mai noticed that Katara refused wine with the main course and also refused desert. Aang had been too busy stuffing his face with the lemon cream pastry to even comprehend that anyone else was at the table. But once back in their room, Katara bid him sit down and kneeled in front of him.

"I need to tell you something," she said and watched panic explode over his face as she watched him mentally assume every possible worst scenario.

"Are you sick?" he blurted out, "Zuko has some of the best healers in the world, we can even get you one tonight—"

She placed her fingers lightly on his lips to silence him.

"It's nothing bad," she said softly and removed her hand from his face, using it to pull his hand down to her stomach. "I'm pregnant."

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she waited for him to respond in any way. She watched his face grow incredibly pale as the words processed in his brain and his steel eyes went wide and locked onto hers. Then, after a few moments of Aang as a statue, he burst to life in a yell, sending a gust of air around the room involuntarily and lifted Katara up off her feet.

"We're gonna have a baby?" he practically yelled and she shushed him through her giggles.

He held her tight and quickly released her in a panic that'd he hurt the baby somehow but she just smiled and kissed him. And was suddenly so very, very grateful that their child was an accident after all.


	2. Comfort

A few weeks out passed Aang's funeral everything became business again. The White Lotus, no longer delegating Aang's funeral or keeping the customary vigil over his grave set out to their next task: locate the Avatar. Aang was gone, old news, the hero of the war and that harbinger of peace, and all the things they'd called him were noting more than chisel marks on the stone that sat over the place his body would lay forever.

"We're setting up home units in both the Northern and Southern Tribes," the commander said during the first meeting they held that didn't involve Aang. They'd held many of meetings before, ensuring the funeral and burial of the Avatar was in keeping with the traditions.

"Good," Sokka said simply, it seemed, because he did not know what else to say.

"We're urging all families in the area to be mindful of their children born within the month following Avatar Aang's death," he said.

It was all business. The White Lotus mourned when Aang's soul ascended and were now scurrying everywhere to find the place it landed upon falling back to earth. She knew this would happen, Aang talked of it often and in the few days before he died he urged her to realize she would spend part of her life in a world where the term "Avatar" did not apply to Aang any longer.

"When we do locate the Avatar," the commander said, "We would be most gracious and humbled, Master Katara, if you would consider training the Avatar in Waterbending once again," he said, for once his tone was not direct and military.

Katara was not surprised at the request, though even upon hearing it aloud she felt the bubbling of something rancid in her stomach. She had not just trained Aang, they'd trained alongside each other, they'd learned Waterbending together. He'd been her best friend and she alone knew the best way to teach him, that's why she became his master. Katara knew nothing of this new Avatar and yet she was called on already once again to be the master Waterbender who would instruct the Avatar as if all she had ever been to Aang was his master.

"I will consider it," was all she said.

The meeting was adjourned and Katara wanted nothing more than to retire back to her own home. Outside the Southern Tribe was sprawling. When she'd left home with Aang fifty years ago it'd been, as Sokka put it, a block of ice. Now a metropolis was blooming in the tundra and children were playing and laughing in throngs, there were shoppers, and markets. She loved the hubbub, it reminded her of her days in Ba Sing Se, but she also missed the closeness of the fifty villagers banding together to survive and the strange boy who had stumbled into the camp and changed their lives.

"You're not the only one who could do it," Sokka said, coming to her side, "There's plenty of masters, even Kya would be a good fit—"

"Kya is far too free to be shackled to a student," Katara said.

"I guess she's got too much Air Nomad in her to settle down and teach someone else," Sokka mused.

Kya had found it within herself to move back down to the South Pole and actually stay there. Katara insisted she didn't need company or a babysitter but Kya persisted, saying she wanted to study more Waterbending, learn more about the history of the South Pole, anything to keep herself down there so her mother wasn't alone.

She also knew Kya felt guilty for how things had been left with her father and how she had not gotten the message that he was sick fast enough to return in time. Her father dying had been a blow to Kya and Katara's daughter spent several days alone after the funeral.

"That all being said though," Sokka continued, "Consider it, please. It would do you good I think, to have a pupil again."

Katara knew she ultimately would train this faceless person wearing Aang's title. Aang would want her to and she knew it was expected of her by nearly everyone. But it would not be easier knowing that as she taught this person everything she had taught Aang. How many ways would the memories overlap and parallel? How badly would that hurt? She would go through the motions of training the man who became her husband, but this person would not be him.

"What is it?" Sokka asked as he pulled her to sit down on a bench in a play area for the city's children. It was beginning to snow over them while a bright sunset etched onto the horizon. Winter was beginning. "No one blames you for still mourning, I mean he wasn't just your husband, he was Aang and—"

"It's not that," Katara said, "It just—Aang told me this would happen, but feeling it is different. Everyone is—beyond Aang, they've moved on. All they care about is the Avatar, the deity, the entity, the person who gets that title. Aang is the past to them."

"Well yes," Sokka said, "They have to think that way. Aang's time is over, no one forgot him though Katara. Look around the world at the statues and murals and even the Air Acolytes. He's still here for everyone, but the new Avatar needs to be fostered. Historically, it's always the most tumultuous time in the years between Avatars—"

He stopped when Katara laughed and he made a face.

"I'm just picturing you saying that when we were kids and you hated that everyone kept telling stories about the Avatar. Now suddenly you're an Avatar expert," she smiled.

"Time changes people."

It was a cheesy line and smiled about it and hugged his little sister and kissed her forehead. The sting of it all was lessened when Katara came home to Kya cooking dinner. Seaweed stew with a side of roasted vegetables and even a fruit pie for desert. Katara wondered if Kya even noticed she'd cooked a meal lacking any meat, or perhaps it was Kya's way of coping.

* * *

They found the Avatar four years after Aang's death. Katara was skeptical at first when they came to tell her, they'd had many false starts over the years and Katara had to wonder how a family could possibly mistake a child for bending elements they shouldn't be able to. Perhaps parents wanted their children to be the Avatar. Katara would wish that upon no one.

"In the Southern Tribe in fact," Sokka said, "Her name is Korra, she's a spitfire and very, very…aware of her own abilities. Aang went out and picked his opposite."

Katara knew Tonraq. He was the one-time prince and chief-to-be in the Northern Tribe, though that information was kept quiet down here. He was the son of Yue's cousin who assumed the chiefdom when Arnook was left heirless. Under strange circumstances he found himself no more than a peasant down south with a quiet wife, Senna.

Katara entered of muttering and whispering people, and the second the door closed behind her it was silent in the room. And her eyes fell upon a small girl, baby fat still clinging to her stomach, her hair pulled back. Her face was vibrant and excited, but when she turned to Katara all that confidence went pale. Her eyes were wide in panic as she jumped to her feet and bowed to Katara.

She then looked over to the White Lotus commander who nodded to her and she took a breath, closing her eyes. When she opened them she demonstrated minor bending ability in water, fire, and earth.

"I can't really do air yet," the girl mumbled, her eyes lowering.

It was enough though. She was the first one in four years of claims to show proficiency in multiple elements. This was the Avatar's new face, for the first time in almost one hundred and seventy yeas Aang was not the Avatar. It was real now. Before her eyes were images of the boy flying on Appa, sliding in Omashu, getting chased by pirates, learning Waterbending then Earthbending, dying in her arms, playing music and dancing in the Fire Nation, then he was standing over an imprisoned Fire Lord. All of that was over now.

Katara step closer to the girl who made eye contact for the first time that day.

And Katara saw the fleeting glimpse of something hiding behind her sapphire eyes. Korra gave the slightest furrow of her brow and Katara knew that something in Korra recognized her, if only for a moment. Some part of this girl's soul knew Katara already and it had been warm and bright. It was gone in a flash and Korra was a stranger again but the split second was enough comfort for Katara.

This girl was not her husband, but a fraction of him made up all that she was. Aang was Aang but also the Avatar, and while man Aang was gone, the Avatar lived on.

As Katara walked out of the hut with a bouncing Korra beside her, she felt a fleeting glimpse of a similar instance almost seventy years ago in a much smaller village. Korra was as energetic as he had been, though far more confident. And Katara had too appreciate that.

"After we're done training today Master Katara...do think, maybe we could...go penguin sledding!" she blurted out through blushing cheeks.

And Katara banished the pang of anguish the memory brought her and smiled at the girl. She would train this girl and love her and watch her grow and spend her life protecting the small sparks of Aang that existed inside her.


	3. Rainy Days

It was raining the first time Katara told Aang she loved him. The most surprising aspect of all of it had been that Katara had been the one to say it first. Not that Aang had ever doubted her conviction in their relationship but had always believed he'd felt stronger for her much faster. But there they were, rain soaking their clothes, hearing the words out of Katara's mouth.

It had started with the rain that day.

Staying in Ba Sing Se was never Aang's favorite pastime but the Earth King, forced to grow an actual spine, had insisted most ardently that the Avatar the Fire Lord travel to the Earth Kingdom for discussions. Perhaps his advisors thought to make the Avatar look like a puppy who would come when called and the Fire Lord his dancing puppet. Regardless, they obeyed. If they were ever going to make this fifth nation work, they needed the Earth King's support.

So they were back in the Upper Ring in Ba Sing Se. When Aang wrote Katara from the Fire Nation to tell her he'd be in the Earth Kingdom capital she traveled up to meet him. And there they were, a rare day off from delegations, tangled up on the couch where they'd fallen asleep the night before playing Pai Sho.

And it was raining. For some reason that was important to Katara right away when she woke.

"Oh," she said, hearing the patter of raindrops hitting the walls outside and the she caught sight of the grey light coming in the window.

"It's not like there's much to do outside in this city anyway," Aang reasoned. He was lying of course, he had a talent for finding the fun things to do in even the most miserable places. But Katara seemed particularly not in the mood.

Aang stood and stretched and her heard Katara shuffle behind him to stand as well. At seventeen he was a whole head taller than her now, he'd teasingly rest his chin on the tip of her head to make his point and she'd giggle then smack him. But today she looked very…well, as dreary as it was outside.

"It's just rain," he mumbled into her hair, coming up behind her to snake his arms around her middle.

"Yeah," she barely responded, "How fitting."

_How fitting?_ What had that meant? Aang raised an eyebrow as Katara slipped from his grasp to get changed upstairs in her room. Aang heard the door close and frowned. She had been perfectly fine yesterday, laughing at even the most awful of Iroh's jokes, actually inviting Zuko to dinner with them to ease his loneliness with Mai back in the Fire Nation, and vehemently getting into a Pai Sho tournament with Aang until late into the night.

And now, now she seemed quite miserable. And all because of rain? Aang knew something very odd was going on. But he feared pressing the matter too forcibly, Katara could be a short fuse when it mattered to her.

Aang decided to get changed himself. He made a habit of wearing Earth Kingdom clothes in the Earth kingdom, Fire Nation in the Fire Nation, but with his day off and only Katara to see him, he dressed in his robes again. In the mirror of his room he studied the stumble along his jaw, prepared to shave it when Katara gave up use of the bathroom.

"Do you think I should group a beard?" he asked Katara when she stepped out of the bathroom, still turning his face at different angles in the mirror.

She walked up to him and placed a hand on his cheek, turning him to face her. She ran the back of her hand under the prickly hair of his chin.

"A beard would be better then this," she said, running her fingers once more across the harsh stubble. She lightly kissed him and went downstairs, quiet again. Aang frowned but didn't lift the razor to his face that morning.

Back downstairs, Katara was on the couch sipping tea, quietly. Aang watched her before she knew he was there. He could practically see the cogs working in her head as she stared into space. Occasionally her eyes would move towards the window as if offended. The rain was a villain, that much was obvious. But why today? He was certain he saw something very wet pool on the edge of her eyes and that's when he stepped forward.

"Katara," he said, kneeling down in front of her, taking her free hand, "What's wrong?"

He expected her to deny anything was wrong, but instead she blinked long and two tears, one for each eye, slipped out and left a shining trail down her dark skin. She leaned forward and set down her tea, allowing her other hand to fit into his.

"You don't remember it," she said, "But I always do. I see it in my dreams all the time."

Aang tilted his head in curiosity, but didn't dare open his big mouth as much as he wanted to. If he interrupted her now, she'd never tell him. For one of the few times in years, their roles reversed: Aang was the one begging to be let in while Katara mourned for something he could not see or understand.

"I know what it feels like to hold you lifeless in my arms," she whispered, "This day, five years ago this day, I still see it so clear in my head. And here we are, back in the place where it happened."

Her eyes were looking just passed his shoulder and he was sure she was imagining the starburst scar on his back where the lightning had stopped his heart.

So that was it. The memory Aang so often joked about now, that had once been his greatest failure, was torturing her. She never spoke of it though, not once, not ever. He assumed she'd moved beyond it all like everyone else had.

"You never talked about this before," he said.

"Why would I want to talk about it?"

"Because I'm the one it happened to."

_That_ had been wrong and he knew it the second it left his mouth. He hadn't meant it that way. He wanted her confidence, he wanted her to see that he could be involved too. But the look on her face told him that was not what he'd said.

"I had to carry you," was all she said. "You were heavy."

It had not been said like a competition or a contest. It was fact, Aang had died and Katara had to deal with it. Death to Aang had been surreal, like sleeping. It was darkness and then he, just as before, was waking in Katara's arms again. And in the time before that Katara had faced all the sadness and despair the world had to offer.

"I remember it every day, especially today," she said.

Aang's greatest fear of that day had been the knowledge of his failure, again. Katara though, Katara had watched him die in front of her and he'd never once asked her about it. Even upon waking on that ship, he growled and kicked and yelled about all he had lost in that moment, not once did he ever consider what it had been like to be on the outside. And he realized, he had not been the only one who died.

How would he feel their roles reversed? Watching Katara die would send him over and edge he'd never return from, and she wouldn't even be there to save him.

"I'm sorry," he bowed his head.

She just nodded, the anger on her face was gone though. Her melancholy of before was gone as well, though her face did not smile. Aang gripped her hands a little tighter and pulled her forehead to his.

"I'm right here," he whispered against her skin, "You made sure of it."

The brush of her lashes over his told her she'd closed her eyes and he prayed she wasn't seeing it happen before. But that's when the rain outside turned to thunder and before he could say anything there was a flash of lightning and Katara winced reflexively.

"I get scared you know," Katara said, "When I don't hear from you for a long time. Something else might have happened to you."

"I worry the same you know," he said. "But we're both right here, right now."

And she opened her eyes again and looked at him, her blue eyes scanning his face, looking perhaps for signs it was all a dream and he was dead again. He allowed her to inspect him with her eyes, and eventually her fingertips. He did not feel the usual burn her hands left when trailing his skin, this was cool like water and he relished it with his eyes closed and she proved to herself he was real. And then she gave a small smile, allowing her open palm to rest on his cheek and he turned his head to kiss the inside.

"Come on," he said quickly, pulling her to her feet.

He pulled her, questioning and protesting, outside and right into the rain. She gave a yelp at the sudden cold sensation of heavy droplets coming down on her. She then gave a panicked look.

"Aang! It's dangerous, get back inside," she ordered, watching the sky for more signs of thunder and dangerous flashes it signified.

"It's not dangerous. Playing in the rain is fun!" he said, tossing some droplets he'd collected in his cupped hands at her.

She smiled, despite herself, and used Waterbending to return the favor threefold. And within miniutes they were soaked and muddy, laughing and teasing. They slipped around and crashed into each other and things as it became a competition to get the other as soaked as possible. They were those two young kids again in the South Pole before one was the Avatar and one was his teacher. They were, in this moment, Aang and Katara.

"I love you," she said, as if she'd simply called him an idiot or teased him again.

The way it caught Aang off guard made her smile brighter as she pulled him down to kiss her and he finally smiled against her lips, hugging her muddy clothes to his own and lifting her up kissing her closer, fingers curled into her thick hair, before setting her down again and reluctantly releasing her. He'd loved her at first sight yet had loved her for thousands of years before the moment he woke in her arms. He'd ran from the temple to find her, the iceberg only gave him up when it was her who came calling. And she loved him, she loved him. Her blue eyes told the story of how she waited all her life to meet him that day. They stared this way for awhile, eyes locked in a way that felt more intimate than two pairs of lips could ever be.

"I love you too."

And when they finally got to bed that night he hoped she had better memories of rainy days.


	4. Storm

The official almanac of the day had predicted it would storm that night. It hadn't. It was sunny all day and night, with only pockets of fluffy clouds to frame the sun in crystal blue. The pamphlets were rarely wrong, so believing the heavens were going to open up on them, Aang decided to change their plans for their date to an indoor activity. Well, in the flurry of papers and trade agreements, he'd forgotten to tell Katara.

"Hey Toph," Aang said finding the Earthbender practicing in the Upper Ring, after an hour of waiting for Katara at the restaurant. "Have you seen Katara?"

He'd panicked. He'd feared the worst. He assumed thugs or gangs held her for ransom, she fell off a cliff or into a pit of snakes.

"No, I haven't seen anyone," she responded, cheekily.

"I'm serious Toph, she was supposed to meet me," he said.

"No, you were supposed to meet her," Toph corrected, "She waited for probably an hour at the zoo before she went home. That's where I found her about to turn the kitchen into a waterfall."

"The zoo? But—oh."

He hadn't told her, trusting that stupid pamphlet about weather patterns, he'd made the reservations for two. And in the bustle of his day, suddenly Katara was on his backburner in the wake of a rebellion in the coal miner guild and the third possible assassination attempt this year for the Fire Lord.

"Let me know when it's safe to come back to the house, Twinkle Toes," Toph said as if she were talking to man on the execution block.

Aang slunked his way through the Upper Ring, cursing the bright and vibrant stars shinning above thanks to no single cloud in the sky. He couldn't even imagine, Katara must have been embarrassed, and angry, and ready to kill him. He imagined that red face she would always get when infuriated, he hoped never to be on the receiving end of it. But when he opened the door, he realized he was wrong.

"Katara, please let me explain!" he shouted first, arms ready to defend himself but she just stood there, hands on her hips staring a hole right between his eyes.

"Thirty seconds, go."

"I got this weather report pamphlet that said it was supposed to storm tonight so I decided to quickly make reservations for a dinner instead so we wouldn't get rained and I got dressed up and it was going to be great but then after an hour I realized I…forgot to tell you," he said and braced.

She just shook her head.

"I appreciate the thought Aang, but not a half complete thought," she said, crossing her arms.

"Katara, I did everything so we'd have a great evening, I made the reservations, and got dressed up, and—"

"Yes, you did all those things but you forgot one detail."

Katara was not usually one to think of herself, in fact in most situations Sokka or Aang had to remind her that mattered too, that she should sleep or eat. But in this moment, she was very, very aware that she'd been misplaced.

"I'm sorry, there was just—there is this huge revolt happening in the miner's guild, and Zuko got another threatening letter. And we're still finding remnants of the Dai Li…"

She looked, however, unmoved. In fact, she looked hurt.

"Three years ago," she began, "You were preparing to facedown an entire army alone, you were going to challenge a psycho to a duel, all alone. You were being forced to gain a mastery of all the elements in less than a year, you never lost sight of your friends and family then," she said.

"Katara, that's not fair," he said, "I've got a burden none of you have—"

"We helped you carry it Aang! I taught you Waterbending, Toph taught you Earth, Sokka kept us all safe and on the right track. We were pulled all over the world to help. We all carried that burden," she said dangerously.

"Katara, I'm sorry."

This hadn't been the first time and he knew her explosion was a long time coming. He's forgotten her birthday until about noon that day because he'd been up all night trying to cut down the wording on a new law for the Fire Nation. He'd lost a gift she'd given him for his own birthday after he got into a fight with a local gang.

She just walked away, mumbling something about getting changed and Aang wanted to smack himself. The more he wanted to tell her she was overreacting and being unfair, the more he knew she'd get angry. He'd once been willing to give up the world just so he wouldn't lose her, how could he possibly be forgetting her now? But maybe that was her point, now, was a different time.

He wondered if she feared marrying him, what uncertainty that would entail, would he miss their children's births or birthdays or holidays with them? He feared for that too.

"Give her a minute to calm down, Sugar Queen never stays mad at you for long," Toph said, out on the front porch of the house.

"I guess—wait, she's been mad at me before?"

"Every couple argues Twinkle Toes," Toph yawned, "But I'd really like to sleep soon so get this one over quick please."

Aang waited in the downstairs living room for Katara return. When she did she was in a robe, under which hid her sleeping clothes. She looked more tired than angry now as she sat down in the chair and tapped a single finger on her left hand against the arm of the chair.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I really, really am. You know I don't do it on purpose."

"I know," she said, "And I know I was being unfair earlier—"

"You weren't, you were—"

She placed a hand to his mouth and inched her face closer. He got quiet.

"I was being unfair. I'm not saying I'm just going be okay with every time you being the Avatar ruins our plans or leaves me spending the day or night alone," she said, "But being…being your girlfriend isn't easy Aang."

He must have looked as hurt as she felt because a flash of panic fell over her face and then retreated like a wave. She sat forward more, placing a hand on his face and another on his shoulder.

"That doesn't mean it's not worth it Aang," she said quieter, "After all we went through, I want this more than anything, and probably more than you knew. But that doesn't mean it's easy."

"I just assumed it could work," he shrugged, sitting back.

"It can, Aang and it does. But sometimes being in different countries and having a world to rebuild is going to come first—for both of us—and it's just, it won't be easy," she said.

Aang had assumed they'd be together and that was the end of it. He was naïve about relationships. He watched Mai and Zuko argue and make up often and swore that would never be him and Katara. He observed Sokka and Suki mesh together almost perfectly. But it was communication, and attention, and a give and take. Relationships, in short, were work.

"You were right," he said. She tilted her head in a silent question, "I once did pick you over the world. I should be doing that more often."

"Aang that was a stupid thing for me to say, nothing good ever comes from an Avatar choosing someone first," she said. And Aang thought of Kuruk, his life destroyed because Koh stole his wife, or Roku, blind to Sozin's plans while he raised a family.

"No," he challenged, "The Avatar is human. If I want a family, they come first."

"Where they can," she amended him.

He was silent and she took that for agreement. They leaned forward at the same time and kissed lightly as a silent apology.

"Toph will be happy," Aang said.

"Yes she will be," Toph herself said, pushing a door open loudly and walking in. "Goodnight weirdos."

Katara rolled her eyes and kissed him again. This time they broke for a flash from outside and a crack from the sky that rumbled the house. Aang wanted to scream and Katara broke out into uncontrollable laughter at how red his face became.

"Well, it did storm after all," he said.

"We can still have that date you know."

And they spent the night cooking in the kitchen, dodging Toph's angry glares every time she'd wake up to get water or use the bathroom. They laughed and played Pai Sho and watched the rain come down outside until finally falling asleep just before dawn. All in all, the storm was worth it after all.


End file.
